Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol04B.djvu/195
CASTANEA SATIVA, Spanish or Sweet Chestnut
- Castanea sativa, Miller, Dict. ed. 8, No. 1. (1768).
- Castanea vulgaris, Lamarck, Dict. i. 708 (1783); Willkomm, Forstliche Flora, 428 (1887); Mathieu, Flore Forestiére, 325 (1897).
- Castanea vesca, Gaertner, Fruct. i. 181, t. 37 (1788); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1983 (1838).
- Castanea Castanea, Karsten, Pharm. Med. Bot. 495 (1882).
- Fagus Castanea, Linnæus, Sp. Pl. 997 (1753).
A tree, attaining over 100 feet in height and an immense girth. Bark of very young stems smooth and olive green, soon becoming greyish white, after fifteen to twenty years gradually changing into a thick brown bark, which is deeply and longitudinally fissured. Young branchlets green, covered with a minute scattered pubescence above, and with longer hairs near the base; in the second year grey, glabrous.
Leaves (Plate 202, Fig. 11) not pendulous, oblong-lanceolate ; broad, unequal, rounded and often auricled at the base ; acuminate at the apex; with about twenty pairs of parallel nerves, raised on the under surface of the blade, each ending in a triangular tooth, which is prolonged into a long fine point; upper surface dark green, shining, covered with minute scattered pubescence ; lower surface lighter green, with dense appressed stellate pubescence.’ Petiole scurfy pubescent, 1⁄2 to 1 inch long. Stipules 3⁄5 inch long.
Nut, variable in size, abruptly and shortly acuminate at the apex, usually three in each involucre, in wild trees.
An elaborate description of the fruit is given by Lubbock.? The cotyledons are fleshy, occupying nearly the whole of the seed, undulate, and interlocking with each other at the margins. When sown, the pericarp, owing to the swelling of the cotyledons, splits in the soil at the apex, so that the shoot and rootlet emerge, the cotyledons remaining enclosed in the pericarp and being gradually absorbed. The germination thus resembles that of the oak; and the young stem similarly bears several scales (two to six in number) below the primary leaves, which resemble in shape those of the adult plant and bear deciduous stipules.
Identification
In summer the leaves are unmistakable and can only possibly be confused with certain species of oak, like Quercus serrata and Q. castaneæfolia, which have, how- ever, very different buds. From the other species of the genus, it is distinguished by the characters given in the key.
In winter the following characters (Plate 200, Fig. 1) are available:—Twigs stout, reddish brown or olive green, shining, conspicuously angled, glabrous for the most part but showing remains of glands and pubescence towards the base, which is conspicuously ringed by the fall of the previous season’s bud-scales. Leaf-scars
1 This pubescence often wears off, so that the leaves are glabrescent or even glabrous, when gathered in summer.
2 Seedlings, ii. 537 (1892).